A Kickstarter project to crowdfund the development of an N Gauge Pendolino

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With two and a half days left for pledging, the Kickstarter total is at £152,500. We’re still £57,500 short, and would need pledges equivalent to £23,000 per day to reach the total.

That’s still possible, but while we are still fervently hoping that we will reach our Kickstarter target, with this in mind we would be foolish not to at least have a back-up plan ready.

INTRODUCING “PENDO PLAN B”

We are delighted to say that Jason and the team at Rapido have taken the decision that the £150K pledged so far is enough to justify this model being produced whether or not the Kickstarter campaign reaches the target.

And the even-better news is that, as a reward to those who got us here, Rapido have very generously agreed that anyone who pledges by the deadline will be eligible for the significantly discounted Kickstarter prices.

Orders taken after the deadline will be at a higher price which we will announced should the Kickstarter fail.

If you have pledged, please also register at our website www.ngaugependolino.com to ensure you can take advantage of the Plan B offer for pledgers (there is a sign up box on the right hand side of nearly every page!).

If your Kickstarter identity is not immediately apparent (a small number of then Kickstarter profiles do not have obvious names) then please let us know so we can match up email addresses to backers so we can later ensure every backer receives the models they are entitled to.

Pledging for the Kickstarter does not commit you to taking up the subsequent offer to buy models via Plan B.

The model will be produced according to our original schedule and is expected to be delivered early in 2016. The first step will be laser scanning the Pendolino in late January.

Having said that, if we can succeed with the Kickstarter it will be an amazing achievement and set a significant precedent for other ideas and projects.

We are also very proud to say that so far we’ve had well over 50 pledges for the Poppy Pendolino, meaning that at least £500 should be raised for the Royal British Legion.

Ben and Mike

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We are rapidly approaching the funding deadline and we don’t want anyone to miss out! Hopefully you will have seen the progress we have made over the last 3-4 months with the choice of manufacturer, and the support of Virgin Trains and Alstom. A huge amount of work has gone into the project and it would be a shame to fall at the final hurdle when we are so close to making the project a reality.

It is important to emphasise that once the deadline for funding closes on Sunday 18 January 2015 there will not be any opportunity to place further orders for approximately 3 years (12-15 months of the production process and then 2 years exclusivity for the project’s backers before Rapido could re-run the Pendolino production – that is even assuming that Rapido were prepared to produce another 1000 sets).

It is also only fair that we state that any future production runs of the Pendolino in the future would be at a signficantly higher price as they would be sold with trader markups through model shops – by backing this project you are getting the opportunity to buy direct and cut out the shop markup.

We now have less than 7 days left in the funding campaign and have secured pledges for £132,000 in funding – if everyone on this mailing list confirms their initial interest and makes a pledge then we have an excellent chance of making our target and if we don’t make the target then no one loses a penny!

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We have definitely hit a slowdown with new pledges, though we are just under a quarter of the way through the pledging period (46 days of 60 remaining) and at 37% funded.

We’ve sent out posters and leaflets to selected traders; if anyone has a local modelshop that they could pop into with a poster please download the Pendolino brochure A4 and ask them if they will display it until 18 January 2015!

The publicity drive should ramp up before the end of the pledging period as we are aiming to have more coverage in the main model railway magazines; however we are aware that there will be some people who tend not to read magazines or go online, but who might well be interested in pledging for a crowd-sourced model, so if you know anyone like that please mention it to them!

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We really appreciate all the support and help we have received. We will be available at Warley all weekend (22/23 November 2014) – Jason from Rapido will be on the Locomotion stand (E22), Mike will be on the DEMU stand (B50) and Ben will be floating around practising his guerilla marketing skills!

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The N Gauge Pendolino, if we generate adequate backing, will now be produced by Rapido trains of Canada. They’re becoming well known to British modellers as they are entering the OO market with a model of the iconic APT-E train.

The APT-E was, in some ways, the forerunner of the Pendolino as the tilt technology was handed down, and for Rapido’s entry into the British N gauge market, where maybe the APT-E makes a little less sense, the Pendolino is a good fit.

Rapido, and their CEO Jason Shron, are an exciting, established and well-regarded company who tend to do things a little differently, and we feel that any model produced by them has every chance of equalling the quality we would have been confident of getting from DJM.

The bottom line is that Rapido will produce the model if we can generate 800 pledges, instead of the 1,000 DJM would have needed. As Kickstarter is an all-or-nothing mechanism, we feel that we have to go with the option that gives us the best chance of getting over that initial hurdle.

The Kickstarter page, with a slightly different set of rewards and goals, will be going live soon. We will now be offering, as an extra pledge possibility, a British N Gauge first: Models with factory-fitted sound.

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Thanks to all of you who filled in our survey – the feedback from over 300 people has been incredibly useful.

We are finalising the specifications with our manufacturer and will be making an announcement very shortly about the final details for the model, the options available and the Kickstarter funding campaign.

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Ben and Mike will be launching the project formally at TINGS on 13 September 2014 and one of us will be around all weekend to talk about the project. Mike will be available on the DEMU stand all weekend – please stop by for a chat!

Flyers and posters will be available at TINGS from the DEMU stand, Santa Barbara, and Electra Railway Graphics; and at RMWeb Live from DJM and Kinlet Wharf at the Ricoh Arena.

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We’re making rapid progress with finalising the specification, milestones and guarantees for the project, as well as the reward levels for the Kickstarter campaign.

Although we would urge anyone supporting this project to try to pledge for a complete unit, we have also found a way to offer some pledges at reduced levels; we hope in this way we can maximise the appeal not just to N Gauge OHLE fans but also to take in those “rule 1” modellers who enjoy running trains from all eras; we’d be happy to see a Pendolino running next to a new Farish Duchess with a rake of Stanier stock (sort of grandfather and son!) as long as we can generate enough interest to see us reach the funding goal.

As everyone probably knows by now, with Kickstarter you don’t take anyone’s money until you’ve had enough pledges to guarantee the entire project.

For this reason I would urge anyone who supports us to spread the word to anyone they know who may be interested – there are many modellers who do not read magazines or use the web forums. We need to get the message everywhere we can!

If anyone would like to help us spread the word please feel free to use the image below in your signature on various online forums.

We are planning to officially “launch” the schemeat TINGS on 13/14 September so please feel free to come and talk to us at the show.